


Shibboleth

by truethingsproved



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is weaponized not because he is naturally a weapon, but because he chooses it; he can do more good as a weapon than he could as a shield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shibboleth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Villainyandgoodcheekbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Charge of the Trenchcoat Brigade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/718358) by [Villainyandgoodcheekbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/pseuds/Villainyandgoodcheekbones). 



There are a handful of things that Bahorel holds above all others, not necessarily as sacred but as a sort of inalienable truth. They’re untouched, too far from Enjolras’ principles and Grantaire’s cynicism and Cosette’s hope and Jehan’s poetry. They’re too far from everything. 

He fights because he likes to put himself back together, loves the rush of piecing himself into one greater whole even when he’s marked beyond recognition (he never is these days, not when he’s six and a half feet of tightly packed muscle practically straining to burst out of his skin). He is weaponized not because he is naturally a weapon, but because he chooses it; he can do more good as a weapon than he could as a shield. Anyone can be a shield. It takes a certain kind of person to be a weapon.

He loves the taste of words in his mouth, the kind that get caught between his hunter’s teeth and refuse to leave until he’s scrubbed them clean with a tongue all too accustomed to be battling for dominance, whether in an argument or in someone else’s mouth.  _Shibboleth_  is his favorite—the brief press of lips with the  _bb_ , the way the  _l_  flicks off his tongue against his teeth, those teeth coming to rest on the tongue that just fled with the  _th_ , which he always draws out. The idea of coded language so pervasive half the world doesn’t even know it exists (he wonders sometimes if you could write a history with those codes and those codes alone). The origin, buried deep enough in the Bible that only a few people could even identify it. It feels exclusive. It feels rare. It tastes like silk rolling in his mouth.

He breathes more smoke than air sometimes because he can’t imagine there’s anything built strong enough to break him down. Smoke breathed into another mouth, breathed into his, belched into the sky from an industrial setting too metallic and grey not to be beautiful. He wonders how it would feel to be mechanical and he grins his hunter’s grin, the words scrubbed out of his teeth to make way for flesh. The worlds taste like silk, the flesh tastes like rot.

He aches to lose control but he can’t because he  _is_  control, strength and power coded into him well into the smallest fragments of his being. He can’t break the rules if he’s the one making them, and there is no doubt that he is. He simply rewrites the structure he wants to destroy.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey you you~
> 
> so occasionally I'm overwhelmed by how great my friends are so I write them things? And the Trenchcoat Brigade has fascinated me since I first started reading these fics, and with the author's v. kind permission I wrote her a thing. So go check hers out, k? 'cause they're way better than anything I could write for her 'verse.


End file.
